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Haggai: Rebuilding the temple

Part 2

22nd March 2014

Last week we read about how unimpressed God was that 15 years after His people returned to Jerusalem, they'd hardly started work on the temple. He asked them through the prophet Haggai whether they really thought their houses were more important than His.

God's house is now the church, of course. And God may well be asking many of us the same question: are our homes, and careers, and hobbies more important than God's church, more important than getting the gospel to people who desperately need to hear it?

I think most genuine Christians know that God's house - the church - and God's mission to get the Good News of the kingdom of God to those who don't understand, is more important than our lifestyle preferences, cars, holidays, sports, re-decorating our homes or anything else. God's house and God's mission are more important than our very lives. But we don't live as if we know it.

Perhaps the reason why we live such selfish lives is not merely that we're selfish people. Perhaps it's that we don't really believe that our service to God's church and God's mission will make much difference.

Perhaps God's people in Haggai's day looked at their own poverty, and at the aggression of the people around them, and the scale of the task of rebuilding, and perhaps they didn't really believe they could do the job. And we look at our own weaknesses, and our own lack of understanding, and the unbelief of the people around us, and perhaps we don't really believe we can do the job, either.

But God had told them to rebuild, so He would ensure they were able to. And God has told us to reach the lost and build the church. Do we believe He'll ensure that we're able to?

When the people responded to Haggai's first (recorded) prophecy, God sent Him to speak to them again. This time, he had a very simple message:

Haggai 1v12-13
Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD.
Then Haggai, the LORD's messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: "I am with you," declares the LORD.

The people wanted to obey God, but their self-doubt discouraged them from re-starting the work of building His house. Isn't that just like us? And God's solution to self-doubt is the simple message, "'I am with you,' declares the LORD" (a prophecy doesn't always have to be long and poetic. Haggai had the discipline to say only what God told him to say).

The godly antidote to self-doubt is not self-confidence; it's confidence that God is with us. And, 15 years late, reassured that God would help them, they set to work:

Haggai 1v14-15
So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.

His message to us is as simple as it was to them:

Matthew 28v18-20
Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

When we build His house, we don't just work to His design, we trust in His help.

The people in Haggai's time wasted 15 years because they didn't expect God to help in the rebuilding work, and to provide for them while they were about His business. They thought they had to do it all themselves. The question is: we will allow our self-doubt to discourage us, so we waste years before we realise that God is with us, and His strength is sufficient for us to do the job He's told us to do?

It's never too soon to start, and it's never too late to start.